Last week YouTube officially announced that the trending page is going away, to be replaced with separate trending pages just for music, podcasts, and movie trailers. It's the end of "internet culture". Let's back up. In the early days of YouTube—two dec...

I hate running. I used to believe that, over time, this would change. I thought, over time, that I would grow to love running out of sheer repetition. This has not happened. I used to think that if I could write for a living I'd never have to work—my hob...

Imagine that you, as a philanthropist or activist who wants to help spread democracy across the world, read about a country described as a "flawed democracy.” The report describes the problems that country is facing in this way: low levels of trust in po...

​​I write a lot. I've finished just shy of 150 articles so far this year between Lifehacker, PopSci, WIRED, and PCMag, an average of 25 articles a month. I love it. The best part of being a freelancer, to me, is that I don't have to do anything but wri...

"Technology makes everything more complicated," an elderly relative said to me. It's hard to argue with. In this specific situation she had paid to reserve a parking spot that, it turned out, she didn't need. She tried to get a refund only to find out that...

The internet used to be exciting—its potential to make the world better seemed endless. In the early 2010s it felt inevitable that innovation would make us happier, more productive, more connected, and all-around improve our lives. It doesn’t feel that...